“We’re all in trouble, quite frankly, because it’s a little bit like saying: ‘Either give me what I want or I’m going to burn the house down for everybody’.”
He added: “The EU has made it very clear that we want to engage with a new British prime minister, we want to avoid a no-deal Brexit.”
Mr Coveney maintained the backstop can be avoided by negotiation, but that it needs to be part of the Withdrawal Agreement.
“The idea that we can consider moving away from something that took two- and-a-half years to negotiate given all of that complexity and compromise on both sides to try and accommodate British red lines, don’t forget, not EU redlines, we’re simply not going to move away from the Withdrawal Agreement.”
He added: “If the House of Commons chooses to facilitate a no-deal Brexit and if a new prime minister chooses to take Britain in that direction then it will happen.
“But this is a British choice, not an Irish choice, not an EU choice, this is a British choice.
“We all want to avoid a no-deal Brexit we want to try to resolve these issues but we won’t do it on the basis of being told what will happen.”
Mr Coveney reiterated that checks would have to be carried out on the island of Ireland in the event of a no- deal Brexit, but he said those checks would not be at the border.
He said: “We have to protect relationships and peace on the island of Ireland, and we are not going to create a security risk by putting a border in place on the border.
“But we also have to make sure that there are verification mechanisms to ensure what the EU knows what is com- ing into its single market.
A source in Mr Johnson’s transition team yesterday claimed the Irish are “rethinking their position”.
Another suggested talks could pave the way for a bilateral deal with Dublin that would render the backstop irrelevant.
Ambassadors from Belgium and Holland last week met Andrea Leadsom, another senior Johnson ally, and signalled a desire to come to a new deal.
